System and method for precisely handling duration values

Abstract

A system and method for handling duration values includes associating a duration value with a start datetime to allow precise duration handling. Thus, a uniform time line approach may be used to handle duration arithmetic, comparisons, or other computations for duration values. For example, the uniform time line approach may characterize a duration value as a difference between two endpoints of a timeline segment having a length equal to the duration value. As a result, duration operations can be carried out with precision and accuracy using simple calendar calculations.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The invention relates to precise handling of duration values in automated systems, and in particular, to precisely determining a duration of a time period between temporally separated events.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Many specifications, guidelines, recommendations, and other technologies have been standardized for use on the World Wide Web by an international standards organization known as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). For example, the W3C standards include an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) schema for defining a duration data type. The duration data type can be used to represent values for durations of time using a six dimensional coordinate value space (i.e., coordinates for designating Gregorian years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds). Using the XML schema definition, a duration of time can be represented lexically in an extended format of PnYnMnDTnHnMnS, where nY, nM, nD, T, nH, nM, and nS respectively represent a number of ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0006]According to various aspects of the invention, a system and method for handling duration values may address these and other drawbacks of existing systems. For example, a duration value may be associated with a start datetime to allow precise handling of a duration. Furthermore, a uniform time line approach may be used to handling duration arithmetic, comparisons, or other computations for duration values, with or without a start datetime. The uniform time line approach may characterize a duration value as a difference between two points on a time line, using a default start datetime as necessary. As a result, duration operations can be carried out with precision and accuracy using simple calendar calculations.

Problems solved by technology

However, XML duration value schema suffers from various drawbacks, which can undermine precision of operations handling values relating to durations, dates, and times, for example.

Difficulties lie in a lack of precision due to variations in a number of days for a given month, and in a number of days for a given year, such that a duration value may not always accurately represent a length of time.

Thus, existing techniques often provide imprecise representations of duration values, which can be unacceptable in automated systems that require accurate determinations of a period of time.

Existing systems suffer from these and other problems.

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